Theel reports: "Renewable and nuclear energy have a substantially lower impact than fossil fuels over the lifespan of each power source."

A rooftop solar installation at City Gate Apartments in Washington. (photo: Evan Marczynski)

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A look at the nay sayers cited in this article is all one needs to figure out one reason renewable s are not where they should be. These people are significantly responsible for most of the power/climate change negative noise out there. Where are these types in China?

I can only imagine where our country would be if the non evolution believing cretins actually woke up from their faux news induced comas long enough to lend their support to a worthy cause.These people will be looked upon as the early people looked on to those that believed the earth was flat.

The naysayers unfortunately have broken wills. To gain back a measure of their self worth, they will attack benign movements because it is just words after all and no real recourse for lashing out - classic transference because it is their own lives they truly despise - not green energy to which they feel out of the loop on. It is when people start to believe these delusions do things become difficult. The American Luddites have risen.

Perhaps someone could answer this. I was wondering, would it be possible to have existing rooftops collect solar energy? I mean, they face the sun daily and the buildings the panels would be affixed to are already part of the grid. Rooftops are all just wasted space. I imagine airline pilots and birds would be annoyed with the glare but that aside, solar energy can only be supplemental to our energy consumption anyway (which is ridiculously high - most of it is spent heating and cooling the home) so why not have every consumer be a part-time supplier? Especially since most people leave their homes unoccupied whilst working. In a perfect world, people would just live in the city and that would cut energy usage nearly in half on its own (not to mention clean water - aka liquid gold - would not be WASTED on grass lawns - America's #1 crop) but that's not the case. I am not a fan of massively centralized production of any kind (food, water, power, medicine, etc) and I think communities should manage their own needs - far less waste in the long run and the locals will have steady jobs that actually help their communities thrive. Farmers the world over have the right idea, be your own producer, we just need to take that core idea into the 21st century and apply it to energy also.

I don't know where you live but welcome to California. Wonderful young companies sprouting up to install solar. People get it. We've already met our 20% renewables goal and we're heading to the next level. As our Gov paraphrased the Little Engine That Could, we know we can!

As always. IT IS MONEY. The oil and coal companies do not want to loose the money they can make when they get it out of the ground. That is the terrible truth. For money they will gladly kill the planet.

We MUST show them for what they are VULTURES AND KILLERS. We want a livable planet. We MUST speak up.

Have you ever been to Nevada? I mean outside of Las Vegas, Reno or Lake Tahoe? Their is now little used Yucca Mountain area, or parts of Area 51 in which their is nothing but rock and no cows anywhere. Sure it will cost to build all this and the cost is going to go up more and more as long as we ignore the obvious and stop Big Oil from calling the shots.

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